A View from the Balcony

Here's a view from our apartment. A boy on a skateboard, while his sister watches. Or is it a girl he is trying to impress? Getting along with others begins at birth. It can be challenging and exciting, but not always both!

This courtyard is the walking entrance to our apartment complex. A guard normally stands beside the gate by the wrought iron fence. If you're walking, there's no other way to go.

I discovered that the phrase, "wrought iron", is the correct spelling. I thought it was "rot" iron. However, it means iron that has been "worked." The look or finished product has been wrought through the hammering, fire, and shaping of the master blacksmith.

I dedicate this posting to all my "wrought-en" friends who are still in God's blacksmith shop.

O, come on, I just couldn't help it.

Yu Garden

This huge stone greets you when you enter the YuYuan Garden, which is primarily a rockery garden built in the mid-1500's by a noble Chinese man for his parents. This stone was added as a sign for visitors like us.

I'm hoping my kids will read this and save money to build us a nice retirement place too - but only when I get OLD!



This is the main entrance, and it's ornate gate and courtyard was a place to welcome visitors. When I was a kid, my family's friends would all use the backdoor. I can still hear the long spring making a "creaking" noise as the screen door would open, the inner door next, and then a voice, "Hey, Cole's, got the coffee pot on?" And of course we had the coffee pot on. I learned to drink it in Kindergarten, and make it when I was eight or nine.

This is a beautiful place to think. The rest. To take in the beauty. That's exactly what this nobleman wanted for his parents. Th older I get, the more I am wanting that myself. A place of quiet in a world with very little quiet left. A place where I can meet with the King of Kings and share my heart - and listen for His.

Yu Garden - Shanghai

Yu Garden
The Yu Garden is a beautiful preserved garden which was built for a noble Chinese man for his parents in the 1400's. He wanted them to have a place to live where their needs would be met, they would be honored for their lives, and they would have good and peaceful thoughts in a tranquil setting. We don't speak the same language, but our concerns for aging parents or our concern for ourselves as we advance in years is apparently universal.


What is it that brings peace? Is it beauty? Yes, but even we all know that beauty is fleeting. (look in the mirror!) Even these gardens are more lovely in the spring and early summer when all the flowering trees and other blooming flowers are in their glory.





A welcoming courtyard where guests could be met and welcomed to their home. When I was a kid, our family friends, always came in the back door. I can still hear that long spring of the screen door as it would open and one of my relatives would shout out, "Got the coffee pot on?" And, of course, we had the coffee pot on. I learned to drink coffee when I was in Kindergarten, and to make it when I was nine.



A place like this would provide a wonderful opportunity to think. Quietly think. We don't have a lot of quiet these days, do we. There is something needful about appropriate quiet.



Not exactly the kind of furniture that we had at our home, but none the less, a place where tea could be brewed, life discussed, and decisions made. I've made some of my most important decisions in some of the most unlikely places. What was important was WHO was with me.
"Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." - Jesus

YuYuan Garden and Thanksgiving at the Marriott

Thanksgiving day, Debbie and I took a taxi downtown to the Old City, or the Yu Bazaar. It is an ancient (by US standards) part of the city which also has a preserved area called the YuYuan Garden, which was built in the 1400's by a son for his parents. I hope my kids will build us something nice when we get old!!

I thought about our cultural differences.

Our architecture looks nothing like this, and yet, the son who built this wanted a place where his parents could find peace and tranquility in their old age. Is that not a wish we all will have as we get older?

Last night we tried to hail a taxi during rush hour to go to the Marriott Hotel for a "traditional Thanksgiving Dinner." It was very cold. It took us a half hour to hail a taxi that was empty, however, once we got there, the setting was beautiful and the turkey delicious!

We had reserved a table a few days ago. When we arrived, there was a large placecard on a table with our name on it. As I turned to my left, only about two feet next to us, was the pastor of the church we attend! What luck - or was it? He and his wife are from Ohio (my home state), and in fact, lived in two of the cities we had lived in early in my adult life. Go figure!

We talked and enjoyed each other and our neighbors for Thanksgiving dinner, then took a taxi home. It was 8:30 p.m. and I realized that our driver had probably been driving for 16-18hours today. He was a pleasant, hard working (hard driving) man, who probably had a wife and child at home. If he complained about his hours, he would be unusual for people here. They work very hard, long hours usually without complaint.

They have hopes and dreams like us all - without thinking that they ought to be handed something
free.

We got up at 3 a.m. to Skype the kids and Deb's parents who were eating together. We had a great conversation and they showed us several different kinds of pies they had not yet finished off. It was a good day.

I am thankful.

Turkey in a Foreign Land

Thanksgiving will be different this year. We are separated from family and the familiar. We went shopping at Carrefour, a huge four story hypermart (grocery/department store) down the street from our apartment. We primarily shopped for items we could recognize. Was that shampoo or conditioner? Are these green beans or something else, similar, but different? Is this toothpaste or hemorrhoid medication?

Thanksgiving had always meant roast turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and a 55-gallon bowl of gravy! What would we do for Thanksgiving in Shanghai this year?

The chickens stared back at us in the poultry department. Their heads and feet intact making their death seem more like murder! But what about a nice frozen turkey the way God intended!? Two lonely gobblers weighing in at 10 - 11 pounds were all we found. Two reminders of home and heritage, pilgrims and pumpkin pie. But at what cost? Over $50 US!! My home sickness was inspiring me, driving me - "Let's buy this one!"

My wife looked at me pathetically as I hugged one of the birds - "Honey, we don't have a pan to put it in and we don't know how to light the oven. The knobs are in Chinese!"

Sigh . . .

What Triggers Your Passion?

That was the question a French-Canadian woman shared at the international church we attend in Shanghai. She spoke with such conviction and purpose that it was startling. We were surrounded by people from over 60 nations, all focused on this person who said, "I'm not an official minister, but I am a practitioner of my faith. I wear my faith on my sleeve."

She challenged us to find our place of service for Christ. She said that she knew we were all busy, but that Christ calls us to serve. "Let your faith define your calender!" she exhorted.

She concluded by saying that she and her husband had recently attended a retreat where someone shared that there is a new name for God - "Jehovah Nike" which means, "GO - do it!" We all laughed, but she had made her point.

What triggers your passion for God?

Goodbye Mom

I had just turned on my computer in Shanghai, China, when an email arrived with an urgent message from my cousin to call concerning my mother, Etta Cole. He told me that she had just started out of the apartment driveway in her 1992 Dodge Dynasty to pick up volunteers for a food pantry the Tallmadge First Church of God operated in Akron, Ohio. Instead, however, she became ill, and ended up in the hospital where they had done several tests and were awaiting the results. When I called, the doctor told me she had found her laying in her bed not breathing. They had tried to revive her, but were unsuccessful.

She had left the planet for her new residence in Heaven with Jesus her Savior.

She lived and died exactly the way she believed she should. She awoke every day with a purpose which was shaped and colored by her Kingdom of God perspective. She believed that God wanted to use her life and would empower her to accomplish each day's goals even if it meant sacrifice, a little pain, or a lot of effort. And God did not let her down. She never felt sorry for herself, and always, always answered that she was doing "great", when asked by anyone.

She thought of the needs of others almost always more than herself. Since I was separated from her by so many miles, it used to bother me to think of her in need of any kind. If only she would move to Oklahoma where I lived, I'd tell her. But she wouldn't have it. She loved me, my wife, the kids and grand kids, but Ohio was her home, and the Tallmadge First Church of God was her place of ministry.

Two or three days before she died, she told me that she had prayed that when it was her time to go, she wanted to go "working." Her prayer was answered just as she wanted.

She loved people by offering grace and mercy, regardless of their lifestyle. Her one desire above all was that her family and friends would know Jesus, practice their faith at a local church, and go to heaven when they died.

She was raised on a farm in West Virgina, one of nine children. She loved and married my Dad, Jim Cole, right after World War II. My Dad used to say that he felt like the luckiest guy in the world to be married to Etta. She and my Dad had been teenagers in the church youth group. That spiritual upbringing served them well during the depression years of the 1930's, World War II in the 1940's, and raising their only child.


When I was a youngster, my mother instilled in me the stories from the Bible as she tucked me into bed and read to me from Egermiers' Bible Story Book. As she prayed with me each night, I became convinced that she believed every word in the Bible, and that I could bank my life on the Author of life, Jesus, just as she had.

She was my most loyal and ardent supporter. I was never without her love regardless of the miles. I will miss her more than I can say, but would never call her back from that glorious place in God's forever kingdom.